MarTech360 Interview With Rana Dib, Senior Customer Success Manager at impact.com, and Steven Bero, Affiliate Marketing Manager at Rosetta Stone

A misfiring affiliate campaign can be more hassle than its worth. It can damage ROI, waste resources and even endanger brand safety. It’s easy to see how (and why) major brands like Rosetta Stone can quickly become unstuck in the partnership space if they don’t use the appropriate tools to drive performance.

How long have impact.com and Rosetta Stone been working together?

impact.com and Rosetta Stone have been working together since April of 2023.

Tell us a little about Rosetta Stone.

SB: We are a world-renowned language tool that – since the early 1990s – has been helping people across the globe learn to read, speak and write over 25 languages. Our platform delivers a range of courses – from beginner through refresher to advanced – simultaneously helping to expand the learners’ horizons through the magic of language education. Our company operates across a number of markets, helping individuals at home, in schools and across organizations learn a second, third or even fourth language.

What do Rosetta Stone use the impact.com platform for?

RD: Rosetta Stone uses impact.com to power and scale its affiliate marketing program. The platform provides accurate tracking and attribution, real-time transaction reporting, fraud prevention tools, and performance analytics that give us complete visibility into its partnerships. This allows Rosetta Stone to identify and reward high-performing partners, reactivate dormant affiliates, discover new partnership opportunities through the Marketplace feature, and scale the program confidently while maintaining brand safety and compliance.

Can you give us an example of a recent campaign?

RD: We recently carried out a complete overhaul of Rosetta Stone’s legacy affiliate marketing program to optimize both ease of use and performance delivered. The company previously encountered tracking issues that made attribution tricky, meaning sales were often miscredited to incorrect partners. There were also other issues that resulted in regular data and reporting inconsistencies, which meant that Rosetta Stone’s affiliate team was essentially working blind. This also meant they lacked the insights to properly scale the program, and the recruitment of quality partners became problematic.

What was the challenge/brief?

SB: We came to impact.com to refocus our affiliate marketing strategy, and repurpose it for the 21st century. Initially, the brief was to get the basics right: sort out tracking issues so that sales were credited correctly, stop the phantom transactions that were plaguing their campaigns and rebuild trust with their partners regarding compensation accuracy.

RD: We then turned to their data and reporting inconsistencies. The aim was for Rosetta Stone’s affiliate campaigns to produce reliable performance data that gave the team real visibility into how their partners were performing. Once we had accurate data, we could focus on strategy – ensuring Rosetta Stone was investing and optimizing valuable partnerships, and increasing ROI.

Finally, Rosetta Stone asked us to help their new-look affiliate program scale at speed, something the impact.com is designed to facilitate once the building blocks are in place. Optimization through nurturing high-potential partnerships played a large part in the success.

What did you do to meet it?

RD: First, we built a reliable tracking foundation, and then we resolved inaccuracies through Transaction Detail Reporting that involve real-time reconciliations. This allowed Rosetta Stone to do everything from sales validation to fraud prevention, all while complying with their affiliate agreements.

As part of the fraud prevention work, the impact.com platform was able to search and report on any unauthorised affiliate behaviour. This meant all partners upheld their end of the bargain regarding the program’s terms and conditions, ensuring brand safety.

Focusing on data-driven decision-making empowered the company to proceed with actionable insights. For the first time, Rosetta Stone could accurately reward high-performing partners and optimize their campaigns effectively.

Simultaneously, impact.com’s platform allowed the company to run Partner Performance Reports that identified inactive partners. This allowed them to create emails and messaging that helped reactivate many international affiliates. impact.com also employed its Marketplace feature to discover and scale Rosetta Stone’s affiliate activities.

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How did it go?

SB: The work has been a resounding success, and impact.com’s platform has achieved significant financial growth and measurable program enhancements.

This was driven by doubling the size of their affiliate programme from 112 to 246 partners, contributing to a 100% increase in site traffic year-over-year.

RD: In fact, since Rosetta Stone came to impact.com, it has achieved 87% year-over-year revenue growth through affiliate marketing. The brand enjoyed $120,000 in first-year cost savings through improved contract terms and streamlined processes, which is testament to impact.com’s technology and platform.

By working with impact.com, Rosetta Stone successfully transformed its affiliate program from a liability into an engine for growth.

Any learnings from the campaign?

RD: A misfiring affiliate campaign can be more hassle than its worth. It can damage ROI, waste resources and even endanger brand safety. It’s easy to see how (and why) major brands like Rosetta Stone can quickly become unstuck in the partnership space if they don’t use the appropriate tools to drive performance.

SB: Through its innovative technology and feature-packed platform, impact.com was able to turn Rosetta Stone’s affiliate program around. impact.com delivered substantial cost savings for the company while also enhancing tracking accuracy, ensuring robust compliance, and providing the confidence necessary to scale effectively.

Any future campaigns in the pipeline?

RS: We have over 1500 joined partners to Rosetta Stone and are always engaging partners across the funnel in the affiliate channel. From TV segments down to holiday gift guides, the program is optimized for the holidays and beyond!

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Thanks Rana & Steven!